Elizabeth Davies: We need to teach kids good sense

In just a few days, I will have a daughter. Right now, our world is filled with flowers and butterflies, pink ribbons and purple bows. It’s all so very frilly and delicate — and innocent.

Elizabeth Davies

In just a few days, I will have a daughter.

Right now, our world is filled with flowers and butterflies, pink ribbons and purple bows. It’s all so very frilly and delicate — and innocent.

As everyone who has a daughter knows, that innocence is so very valuable. It should be preserved at all costs. But more and more, it seems today’s parent has a growing mountain to climb on that little girl’s journey to adulthood.

Perhaps if the recent news about “sexting” didn’t appear while I was pregnant with a baby girl.
Perhaps if the girls involved weren’t so young. Maybe then, I wouldn’t be quite so disturbed by what I read.

Or maybe not.

The fact is, sexting is disturbing. In case you’re in a blissful bubble — and part of me wishes I could be there with you — sexting is a trend among teens where they send nude pictures of themselves to one another. Mostly, it’s girls sending pictures to boys. Sometimes, it’s just the top half. Sometimes, they’re using their camera phones to take close-ups of their genitals.

And often, the boys just pass those pictures right around to every other kid they know.

I struggle to even comprehend this. The world of adult pornography, the lure of prostitution, even teen promiscuity — that I can wrap my mind around. But the idea that middle and high school girls would willingly share photos of their most private moments? That I just don’t get.

Part of me wonders where today’s teen gets the gall to do something like this. I vividly remember wearing my first bikini as a high school junior, feeling exposed and nearly naked the entire time. I can see myself in college, wearing a sweat shirt out of the house in July so that my mom wouldn’t see the single inch of midriff that my shirt showed off.

Back then, making out was something you did in the dark. Sure, some girls wore short skirts and low-cut tops. But most of us were self-conscious about our changing bodies. We didn’t even talk about it, much less display it.

It would be easy to blame celebrities for our moral downgrade. It also would be convenient to blame parents — and certainly, some of the blame should sit there. We are our children’s moral compass. It’s up to us to say “no way” and mean it, well before we’re talking about things as serious as sexting.

Ultimately, I think blame falls on all of us — the adults of this world who have taken on an “it’s OK as long as you’re not hurting anyone” mentality. The thing is, it’s not OK. There is Moral Black and Moral White. Living in a world of Moral Gray is how we’ve come to this point.

Raising a non-sexting generation means starting years before Moral Gray even enters the picture. It means holding children accountable for their actions. It means building self-esteem the old-fashioned way: By giving them chores and responsibilities, then letting them develop a sense of pride through a job well done.

We are too quick to praise our children for the things they haven’t earned: Looks, intelligence, material things. We fall over ourselves thanking them for doing things they ought to be doing anyway. And in the meantime, we’ve lost our focus. Rather than building esteem, we should be building character.

Too many of today’s teens, particularly those who think sexting is the cool new craze, find themselves with heads that are too big — and frankly, not enough good sense to fill them. It’s not the kids’ fault. It’s ours. We need to find a way to fix it.

Elizabeth Davies is taking some time off from her column to enjoy her new daughter. Her column will return in a few months.